


Hotter Than Hell

by Dansnotavampire



Series: The Kepcobi Dua Lipa fic anthology [3]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Corporate Murder, Honestly just lmk in the comments if i missed anything, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kidnapping, M/M, Manipulation, Oral Sex, Sex, Song Lyrics, Songfic, This is the darkest thing ive ever written be warned, Torture, Trans Male Character, Unhealthy Relationships, trans Jacobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 16:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12561896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dansnotavampire/pseuds/Dansnotavampire
Summary: There is a certain art to making a man into a perfect weapon.





	Hotter Than Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you didn't read the warnings, this piece is a little fucked up.

For such an educated man, there are very few things Daniel Jacobi can list as concrete truths. He can tell you that the sun gives life, that destruction is beautiful, and that - regardless of whether he wants to or not - if Warren Kepler calls him, he will go.

Kepler is intoxicating, eyes like fire and a voice like liquid glass. He smells like whiskey and honey and gunpowder, and Jacobi's been working with him for nine months when he finds out that he tastes the same way. They'd gotten back from a mission two days ago, and are taking some time off whilst Maxwell recovers - after all, their unit of SI5 wouldn't be half as good without it's resident computer genius.

Kepler shows up at his door late that night, the smell of whiskey on him even more pervasive than usual. He knocks, but doesn't wait to be let in. "Sir, what are you doing here?" asks Jacobi, because Kepler's obviously been drinking yet is barely even tipsy, and there's no reason for him to show up at Jacobi's door even when he's completely sober.

Kepler just smiles, and holds up a bottle of scotch. "Why, Mr. Jacobi," he says, "we're celebrating!" And Jacobi knows that it's not just that, because Warren Kepler would never share his alcohol with someone without an ulterior motive, but Jacobi gets a pair of tumblers out anyway, and lets Kepler pour him a drink. They sit on the couch together, Kepler's body warm and firm and _alive_ next to him, and Jacobi's pretty glad he accepted that job offer nine months ago.

They don't talk a lot while they're sat there, only moving to pour another drink, or to grab some snacks. Jacobi's not quite sure how someone manages to look good while licking cheeto dust off of their fingers, but if anyone that could manage that, he's not surprised that it's Kepler.

He discovers Kepler's ulterior motive a few hours later, when they're both well past tipsy (but Jacobi's closer to being properly drunk.) The soft light in Jacobi's apartment make Kepler look almost ethereal, and Jacobi knows that he's staring, but when his superior looks like he was carved by the hands of god himself what do you expect him to do? Kepler's going to notice, he can tell, but by then he's drunk enough whiskey that he's brave enough not to care. The man's gorgeous, high cheekbones and dark skin and eyes deep enough to drown in, and he _looks_ at Jacobi when he notices the staring, looks him straight in the eyes, perfectly composed and sharp as a knife, and asks "Is there something you want, Mr. Jacobi?"

And Jacobi knows that it's probably the wrong thing to say, and that even if it isn't it's a horrific breach of protocol, but that doesn't stop him from looking Kepler in the eyes and saying "Yeah, Sir, there is. You."

He assumes that it was the right thing to say, because the next moment Kepler's mouth is on his, and Jacobi isn't sure why he tastes of gunpowder but maybe it's just a Warren Kepler thing. It doesn't really matter, though, because Kepler is kissing him, the long line of his body pressing him into the couch, and it's absolutely fucking perfect.

_He calls me the devil_

_I make him wanna sin_

_Every time I knock, he can't help but let me in_

_Must be homesick for the real_

_I'm the realest it gets_

_You probably still adore me_

_With my hands around your neck_

Kepler's fingers make quick work of Jacobi's shirt buttons, far too quick for a man who's a third of the way down a bottle of scotch. Jacobi pushes him upwards, so that Kepler's sitting and Jacobi's straddling his (broad, muscular) thighs. He then pushes Kepler's shirt off of his shoulders and down his gloriously toned arms, and drags a softly biting kiss down his neck, across his collarbone, leaving small red marks in his wake. Kepler is painfully hard underneath him, his cock pressing into Jacobi's core, and in all honesty, Jacobi wants nothing more than to taste him.

He slides down to the floor to kneel between Kepler's legs as gracefully as he can, and pops the button on his (sinfully tight) jeans, dragging them down his legs and _fucking hell_ is there any part of this man that isn't rippling with muscle? Then he tugs his boxers down and Kepler's rock hard already, and isn't that a nice ego boost? Jacobi licks a line up the underside of Kepler's cock, catching a salty drop of precome on his tongue. Kepler's blunt fingers card through his hair and push his head down, and Jacobi takes all of him into his throat. He then looks up at Kepler through his eyelashes and it's the most obscenely beautiful thing that he's ever laid eyes on. Jacobi's lips are bitten red and wet with saliva as they stretch round the girth of Kepler's cock, his hair a disevelled mess, impossibly soft against Kepler's calloused fingers, Jacobi's pupils blown wide - whether with lust or intoxication, it's hard to tell. Kepler, on the other hand, is the complete opposite; his hair is still perfectly gelled, his mouth only slightly parted, his eyes holding a smouldering gaze that shoots straight to Jacobi's core.

He is, as always, sublime.

Kepler tugs harder on Jacobi's hair, moving his head at a torturously slow pace. Jacobi only comes close to choking once, and he's suddenly incredibly glad for all of those nights he wasted clubbing in college when he should've been studying.

Kepler's fingers loosen their grip on Jacobi's hair after a while, allowing him to pull his mouth off of Kepler's cock with a lewd popping sound. Kepler then pulls him back up onto the sofa and _bites_ into his neck, almost hard enough to break the skin, as he unbuttons Jacobi's fly and helps him shift his trousers down and off. Then Kepler's hand creeps between his thighs, and he presses one finger, then two, into Jacobi, the pad of his thumb dragging slowly across his dick. Jacobi tilts his head back as Kepler licks the dark mark he left on his neck, before moving his mouth up to nip at the sharp corner of Jacobi's jaw. Jacobi writhes on his fingers, moaning as Kepler smirks against his neck. "Gorgeous," he mutters into Jacobi's ear, somehow still perfectly composed, as he reaches across the sofa to grab at something. A condom. Yeah, that's cool. Really cool. Jacobi is so unbelievably okay with that. Kepler positions himself at his entrance, Jacobi inhaling sharply as he pushes into him in one swift motion. Kepler's _huge,_ and Jacobi feels so goddamn full that it takes his breath away. Kepler gets him off in less than five minutes, and while Jacobi would normally be embarrassed about lasting such a short length of time, he's too blissed out to give a shit. Kepler comes in him a minute later, then hands Jacobi his clothes and throws away the condom.

He then offers Jacobi the chance to stay the night, and while Jacobi may not be a sentimental fool like he once was, he still says yes.

_Can you feel the warmth? Yeah_

_As my kiss goes down you like some sweet alcohol_

_Where I'm coming from, yeah_

_It's the darker side of me that makes you feel so numb_

The second time it happens, Jacobi doesn't know what he's doing, or why he's doing it, because he knows that Cutter would have his head if (when) he found out, (but not Kepler's, Cutter would never risk his little hunting dog coming to harm) but that doesn't mean he's going to stop. Nothing could make him stop - or, almost nothing. He'd stop if Kepler asked him to. He'd do anything if Kepler asked him to. And so, it happens again. And again. And again. It almost becomes a pattern, but not quite - sometimes Kepler comes to him, sometimes (more often) he goes to Kepler, always chasing that intoxicating backhanded praise, the regret he feels when he leaves in the morning becoming less and less.

One memorable time, maybe two or three months after the first, Jacobi goes to him after a mission. The mission goes well - almost perfectly, in fact. They're two whole _days_ ahead of schedule, and Jacobi's just got some explosives to set before they can extract and watch it burn, when he sees... someone. A woman. She's on the phone, talking to someone, a scene that seems so out of place in a building like the one they're in.

"Okay sweetie," she says, in the bright tone that people only use when talking to young children "mummy will see you later. Love you!"

He hears the voice of a child, no older than about six, come through the phone speaker. "Love you too, mummy!" they say, before the woman - before that child's _mum_ \- hangs up the phone.

Jacobi can picture the kids face, excited to see their parent after a long day at school. He can picture the fear on their face when mum's still not home, one, two, three hours after she promised she would be.

He can picture the devastation when they hear that she won't be coming home ever again. And he feels sick to the stomach.

Kepler, noticing his hesitation, the pallor of his skin, smacks him across the back of the head. "We don't have time for you to be sentimental, Mr. Jacobi. Set the timer, and let's get out of here." So Jacobi shakes the thoughts from his head, and pushes the last few buttons. A click, an alarm, and two flashing lights later and the building's been locked down, they're outside - far enough away that they won't get hurt, close enough that they can still watch the fruits of their labour.

He leans against Kepler's side as they watch the explosives go off, taking the life of a woman with a child who is waiting for her at home with them. It's the first (and, hopefully, the last) time that Jacobi flinches whilst watching an explosion.

(For the record, Kepler's posture stays completely stiff and straight the whole time, the only emotion in the situation coming from Jacobi. That definitely says something about their relationship - not something Jacobi's going to think about, but something.)

They get back two days early. Cutter's so pleased that he gives them the time off - which is... rare, to say the least. They go to their respective homes, shower, eat, and then half an hour later Daniel Jacobi is knocking at Warren Kepler's door with three shots of whiskey in him and a condom in his back pocket. He leaves the next morning bitten and bruised, every ounce of guilt purged from his fatally human body. (This is another way that he differs from Kepler. Kepler could never be described as fatally human, because nothing could conceivably kill him, and because he chose to stop being human a long, long time again.)

_Cause we're hot like hell_

_Does it burn when I'm not there?_

_When you're by yourself_

_Am I the answer to your prayers_

_I'm giving you that pleasure heaven_

_And I'll give it to you_

_Hotter than hell_

_Hotter than hell_

Kepler, monster that he is, is addictive. His kisses taste like smoke and whiskey, and his touch feels like fire against Jacobi's skin. Jacobi craves every small word of praise that drips like honey from his barbed wire tongue, relishes in every tiny acknowledgement of his achievements - regardless of how many insults accompany them.

Kepler's merciless, too. He toys with his victims like a cat does with its prey, making them second guess their every move, their every thought, as if the man's intoxicating charm and deadly, controlled power could take away their very free will. Jacobi cant take his eyes off him when he gets like that, all power and energy and _control._ He gets like that when they're together, sometimes, as well, and leaves Jacobi a shaking, writhing mess, limbs quivering and skin sticky with sweat. Kepler then kicks him out in the morning, or even as soon as they're finished, any and all previous semblances of care vanishing into the soft light of dawn. He once asked Jacobi why he kept coming back, when he was obviously not an unattractive man, when he could have almost anyone - Kepler having seemingly forgotten that all of Jacobi's masculine attractiveness had been given to him by testosterone shots and a surgeon's scalpel.

But instead of saying anything about how he knew that Kepler would at least pretend to want him, he just grinned a grin that was somehow simultaneously cocky and the smile of a man begging for approval, and said "Well, Sir. I'd hate to disappoint you."

Kepler let him stay that night.

_You're my manna from heaven_

_We all gotta get fed_

_Can't let me know I'm wanted_

_Can't let me in your head_

_I'm not here to make you kneel_

_But it's praise that I'll get_

_You ain't gonna walk free boy_

_Not finished with you yet, no_

The next mission, things go slightly less perfectly, to the point where Kepler, the sadistic fuck, is watching with a cold and calculating gaze as Jacobi presses the barrel of his gun to the forehead of the quivering man knelt on the floor in front of him. "P-please," the man begs, his voice shaking almost as badly as he is, "please, don't kill me, I'll do anything, just-"

Jacobi pulls the trigger.

The noise echoes round the confined room that they're in as this nameless man's brains splatter across the floor, his entire life - memories, thoughts, feelings - spilling across black steel as he crumples to the floor. All of a sudden, Jacobi feels the overwhelming urge to empty the contents of his stomach over this dead man's corpse - but then Kepler tells him to come along, and he can't to anything but obey.

Jacobi still feels sick, because he just shot someone in the head at point blank range, and he's used to working slightly further away than being able to make eye contact with his targets, but then they're walking out of the facility and Kepler says how proud he is that Jacobi did that without even flinching, and the sickness, the terror, the hatred of what he's becoming (of what Kepler's turning him into) dissipates, only to be replaced by a giddy kind of pride.

He thinks about it that night, when Kepler's warm in bed next to him, completely untroubled by the various consequences of all that he's done, all the hurt he's caused. Jacobi longs to be like that, longs to be untouchable in his sin. He knows why he wants that, too, and it's not because of anything natural. Warren Kepler has changed him. And he probably won't stop changing him until he's moulded Jacobi into the perfect weapon, capable of killing without remorse and laughing about it over a drink mere hours later.

If Jacobi had any want left that wasn't for destruction or Kepler's praise, then he'd try and leave. But he doesn't. And so he stays.

_Can you feel the warmth? Yeah_

_As my kiss goes down you like some sweet alcohol_

_Where I'm coming from, yeah_

_It's the darker side of me that makes you feel so numb_

The next time has in a situation like that, the man on the floor doesn't even manage to beg. Jacobi kills him with an expressionless face and an emotionless heart - and while Kepler laters tells Cutter that he's not perfect yet, he has definitely improved.

He's well on his way to being a perfect weapon.

_Cause we're hot like hell_

_Does it burn when I'm not there?_

_When you're by yourself_

_Am I the answer to your prayers_

_I'm giving you the pleasure heaven_

_And I'll give it to you_

Jacobi becomes a perfect weapon - a perfect agent - a few weeks later. He's drunk, he's alone, he's wanting things that he knows he can't have, when there's a knock at the door. He jerks up, hoping against hope that it's Kepler, that this intoxicating enigma of a man wants him even half as much as Jacobi wants him. He drains his glass, barely noticing when the ice cube clinks painfully against his teeth, and walks far too quickly to the door where, if someone up there still loves him at all, Colonel Warren Kepler will be waiting.

He guesses that no one does love him, because it's not Kepler, it's a man all in black with fucking _chloroform_ and that's so goddamn simple, how did he not see it coming?

Then he's waking up in the back of a van, arms bound together and legs forced apart. He doesn't move, doesn't alert them to the fact that he's awake. He tries to take stock of the situation - it was maybe half one in the morning when he left, with approximately eight fingers of whiskey in him, consumed over the course of maybe an hour. He was now slightly dazed, probably from the chloroform as much as from the alcohol, and his head didn't hurt, meaning that he'd been pumped full of painkillers. Sunlight was creeping through the small window in the top of the van, meaning that at least five hours had passed. Probably more.

So: drugged, in a likely unmarked van in the middle of fucking nowhere - to put it shortly, Jacobi was fucked.

The van came to a stop maybe half an hour later, and one of the four people in the van with him shook him violently by the shoulder to wake him up. Jacobi feigned a drowsy coming to, figuring that they were less likely to torture him when he was still numbed by painkillers. Anything to stall the inevitable.

Sixteen hours later, Jacobi knew he couldn't pretend to be drugged any longer. Two men came into the room where they'd shoved him, black half-masks on their faces like a pair of storybook villains.

"Hello, gentlemen," he says, with a suave charm that he can only have picked up from spending too much time around Warren Kepler, "I imagine you have some questions for me."

He gets punched across the face for his efforts, so hard that his jaw clicks and sparks flash across his vision. He opens his mouth wide, and his jaw makes a loud popping sound, which is really... not good. Then one of the men says "Tell us everything you know about Colonel Warren Kepler," and he decides that it would be even less good if he were less of a stubborn, smitten asshole.

He starts with snarky one liners and blatant lies, information that wouldn't be relevant even if it were true. He receives only beatings for his (absolutely hilarious, in his opinion) performance. It starts off with fists, with kicks, but he knows that that won't last long. Two days (or, at least, six meals) have passed when they bring out the knives. They leave him uncuffed with a first aid kit for half an hour exactly at the end of each session, and any wounds that aren't stitched or bandaged are just left to bleed and get infected. It would be a slow and painful way to die. He still doesn't tell them anything, his sarcastic wit dissolving into silence and spat blood. He hopes - would pray, but for his lack of belief in a benevolent god - that Kepler and Maxwell will find him soon.

And until they do, he makes sure that Kepler won't be disappointed in him - lips sealed, secrets locked away. He only opens his mouth to eat, drink, and spit blood out of his mouth when they decide to try and knock his teeth out. Sometimes they succeed. Jacobi hopes that Goddard Futuristics' medical plan covers kidnapping and torture. (He also hopes privately, in a hidden away corner of his heart, that Kepler won't think he's weak for being like this. That he won't find him repulsive after seeing him half starved and beaten. He won't hold his breath.)

_Hotter than hell_

_Hotter than hell_

Jacobi's lost track of time, of how may meals he's eaten, of how many beatings he's taken, of how many bandages he's wrapped around his poor, broken body, by the time Kepler and Maxwell save him. It's the middle of the night - or at least the time when Jacobi gets to sleep, flat, on a bed, unrestrained by handcuffs - when he stirs at the sound of gunshots from outside his cell. He hears a familiar voice, honey and whiskey tones he knows oh so well, from outside his cell, and he daren't hope that it's Kepler, but he does anyway.

His hope pays off. The voice come closer, and Jacobi can clearly hear what it's saying at last. "I am Colonel Warren Kepler, and if you don't tell me where my second in command is _right. Fucking. Now!_ I will kill you so painfully, and so graphically, that descriptions of your death will be outlawed in all but the most primitive and carnal of societies - do you UNDERSTAND?" Kepler's voice raises to a shout as he finishes speaking, and it's the first time Jacobi's heard him get that pissed. He's kinda touched - 'Didn't know you cared that much, Sir,' he'd say later, when they get home, and Kepler would reply with something like 'Of course I care, Mr. Jacobi. I can't lose my best agent, can I?'

Jacobi would preen at that.

But for now, he just listens as he hears the trembling voice of some unknown person telling Kepler where he is, and then pleading and begging Kepler not to harm them. Kepler thanks them for their time, and then pushes them away, taking one, two, three paces towards Jacobi's cell before turning on a perfectly sharp heel and shooting the person square in the face. Jacobi doesn't feel sick at the thought of people dying on his behalf anymore. He's not exactly happy about it, but it's better them than him.

After the gunshot is done ringing down the hallway, Jacobi hears rattling at the door of his cell. "Jacobi," he hears Kepler say, "are you in there?"

Jacobi springs out of his bed, feeling more energised, more _alive_ than he has in... well. In recent memory, let's say. He makes it across the room as fast as he can, and bangs on the door. "Sir! I'm here!" His voice croaks with disuse and dehydration, and he knows that Kepler can't hear him.

He tries again. "Sir!" his voice is louder this time, desperation showing through it. "Warren!"

"Jacobi! Daniel!" His voice changes on the last word, and Daniel knows that Kepler's found him. He slumps down against the wall as Kepler gets the door open, the weeks of pain and lack of food really taking their toll on him. Kepler races over to him, and cups his face in the palms of his hands. "Oh my god, Daniel," he says in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, "What did they do to you?"

Daniel cracks the most painful smirk of his entire life, and says, "Well, Sir. They asked me to tell them about you." The gentle smile on Warren's face is almost worth the pain in his ribs, the scars on his... well, his everything, the dryness of his throat. The soft kiss that Warren presses to his lips moments later is _definitely_ worth it.

_When we go down right there_

_You make me feel right there_

_When you lay me down right there_

_We just make it right there_

_Cause you're looking so right there_

_Baby you should touch me right there_

_If you take me right there_

_We can make it_

They return to Cutter, to Goddard, to the closest thing Jacobi's ever had to a home, after a seven hour drive. Jacobi had been out in the middle of _fucking_ Texas, being held by yet another of Goddard's competitors. The moment Jacobi made it to the van, driven by one Alana Maxwell, he practically collapsed in the backseat, barely concious. "Try and stay awake, Daniel," said Kepler, "I don't want to be resucitating you because you fell asleep with a brain injury." He raises his voice slightly. "Maxwell, can we get-"

"On it, Sir," she cuts him off as she hands some water and some food back to him. "D'you reckon he'll be okay?" She asks after a moment of silence.

Kepler sighs. "I hope he will." Later, he'd pass off the second uncharacteristic display of care for his second as simply tiredness, stress, and not being prepared to find Jacobi in such bad shape. Alana knew the truth though. Kepler simply wasn't as heartless as he liked to pretend.

Despite his best efforts, Jacobi falls asleep about three hours into the drive, his head more or less in his superiors lap. Kepler absentmindedly rubs a thumb over the line of his jaw.

"Sir?" Maxwell asks a little reservedly, testing Kepler's mood.

"Yes, Maxwell?" He's tired, she can tell, and annoyed, but he's not going to snap at her for asking stupid questions. Not today.

"Do you love him?"

Kepler's thumb stills on Jacobi's jaw, just above a dark bruise, one of many littering Jacobi's face, his arms, his hands. Kepler really doesn't want to see the rest of his body. He sighs, because it's so tempting to say yes, that he loves Daniel Jacobi, loves the monstrous man he's become, that Kepler's moulded him in to, but he doesn't want to call what they have love. It's fucked up loyalty, devotion and chaos and the desire to control and be controlled all wrapped up in a deadly emotional package that's monstrous enough to not be called love, but also isn't able to be called anything else.

So, he sighs, and says "Maybe."

They finish the car drive in silence.

_Cause we're hot like hell_

_Does it burn when I'm not there?_

_When you're by yourself_

_Am I the answer to your prayers_

_I'm giving you that pleasure heaven_

_And I'll give it to you_

It takes a few months for Jacobi to recover, and after that he's back in the field. One of his first missions back is breaking into the company offices of the people who held him in Texas for four weeks, just some corporate espionage, and it's eerily reminiscent of his first ever mission with then-Major Warren Kepler.

This time, though, he's not locked in a room with a bomb he's never seen before.

This time, there's a man stood across the room from him. He's unarmed, but his voice is a rich baritone that Jacobi recognises very easily. He has his back to them, and is speaking into a phone. "Yes, Sir, I understand." he says "It won't happen again." Those are the last words that he says before Jacobi slits his throat.

He then grabs the phone, and mutters darkly into it. "Don't come after Goddard ever. Again. We will always - _always_ \- have our revenge." He puts the phone down and drives his still bloody knife through it, very effectively ending the call.

He turns and smirks at Kepler, who gives a cocky grin in return. "Good job, Jacobi."

They leave the building an hour or so later, with all the files that they were sent for, and a personell list, which contains names, faces, family details, and - thank fuck - voice samples of all employees.

Two weeks after that, Jacobi gets a phone call in the morning that the last of the people involved in his kidnapping and torture has been killed. He rests his head on Kepler's chest, and smiles, no qualms about the twelve people dead and the twelve families left behind.

Kepler smiles back, and kisses the scar going down his arm.

_Hotter than hell_

_Hotter than hell_

_Hotter than hell_

_Hotter than hell_

_And I'll give it to you_

_Hotter than hell_

A perfect weapon, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> I thrive on feedback, kids! Also hmu on tumblr @dansnotavampire to scream about these slightly screwed up boys


End file.
